


The Effigy

by epkitty



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Bonfire Night, Incest, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-16 00:45:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epkitty/pseuds/epkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bonfire Night in London after their first trip to Narnia. Memories and questions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Effigy

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know so much about Bonfire Night as I would like, finding only bits and pieces in various books, instead of researching it more thoroughly, as I’m generally apt to do. So, I worked with what I knew and made up the rest, as usual.

The last thing they heard as they scampered down the steps was, “Peter, aren’t you too old for such nonsense?”

“Back by nine, Mum!” Peter yelled over his shoulder.

“We promise!” Edmund agreed.

And the pair of them shot down the cobbled street, racing to the corner.

“Do you have the shirt?” Peter asked.

“Of course. And you?”

“Dad’s old boots!” Peter crowed, holding them up by the bootstrings.

“Brilliant! Who’s coming? Besides Dan and Dave?”

They slowed to a walk and Peter answered, “Basil, Hannity, Todd… maybe Harris.”

“And you think we’ll get everything for our Guy?”

“Course we will,” Peter said as they climbed the steps to the Tanner’s house.

Peter rang the bell and when sweet young Hanna answered the door, the brothers sang:

> “Our king’s a valiant soldier  
> With his blunderbuss on his shoulder  
> Cocks his pistol, draws his rapier,  
> Pray give us something for his sake, here!

> “A stick, a stake for our good king’s sake  
> If you won’t give one, I’ll take two  
> The better for me,  
> The worse for you!”

Sweet young Hanna with her shining curls smirked and nodded at Peter. “What are you s’posed to be, then?”

Peter looked down at his ragged costume. “A ghoul!” he told her and raised his clawed hands in a gesture of attack. “Argh!”

“Very frightening,” she soothed. “And you, Eddie?”

“It’s ‘Edmund,’ Miss,” Edmund said, biting his lip. “I was supposed to be a ghost, but Mum wouldn’t let me have the sheet.”

The pretty lass laughed and told them, “You wait here an’ all.”

The door stood open for a minute and Peter looked at his younger brother. “Could’ve come up with something better than the truth.”

Edmund stuck out his tongue just as Hanna returned. “Close your eyes Eddie. I mean, Edmund.”

The dark-headed youth obeyed and Hanna smeared ash all over his already pale face. “There now, positively ghostly. You’ve a sack, I suppose?”

Peter held open the old burlap bag and Hanna unloaded several sticks of kindling into it. “Not done yet, boys,” she said and handed each of them a small tart. “A soul cake for each of you. Get along now, and light a firecracker for me, then.”

So it went, up and down the cobbled streets. The sack was soon filled with dry wood, which Peter hefted up on his shoulder with barely a complaint. Their pockets were soon lined with coins, candies, and matches, and their bellies were full of treats.

Whenever they passed someone on the street, they held out their caps and called, “A penny for the old Guy!”

They met up with Dan and Dave, who took over the sack of kindling and pledged that the other lads had gathered up trousers and straw, and all would be ready for the evening.

Free of their burden, Peter and Edmund raced through the streets and when they saw friends of their parents, they would sing:

> “We want a twig, to make it alight  
> Hatchets and duckets, beetles and wedges  
> If you don’t give us some, we’ll pull down your hedges”

They wrapped up the bundles of sticks in scraps of twine and slung them over their shoulders as they paraded the streets, singing with other boys when they joined along in the same way.

Someone began fireworks early, and they all rushed to see the policemen chasing the children away from a statue.

Dusk fell quickly, and the brothers ran to the end of an old, wide alley to meet the others. Peter helped to build up the kindling while Edmund helped to stuff the shirt and trousers with straw.

By the time the poor effigy was hung from an old beam laid across the buildings’ window ledges, it was full dark and the streets were packed with boys running about and singing and marching through the city with the burning Guys swinging from long poles.

In their own corner of the city, the boys lit the fire with old newspapers. They fanned it and blew on it and tossed in measly chunks of coal from their pockets. They told raucous jokes and old stories as the flames grew and grew until they licked the boots of the effigy hanging above.

They stuck lit sticks into the straw legs, eager to see it burn and then they all sang together:

> “Guy! Guy! Poke him in the eye!  
> Put him on the fire top and there let him die!”

This they sang over and over and danced round the fire with dark and smudged costumes whirling, pale arms and legs sticking out like scarecrows, voices high and low echoing down the brick walls.

As soon as the fire began to die, the boys lost interest, throwing stones at one another and then chasing each other into the main thoroughfare to join the larger groups and to seek out the places where the fires still burned.

But still in the alley stood Peter and Edmund, watching the dying fire.

“Christmas is coming soon,” Peter said solemnly.

“Yes.” Edmund looked at his older brother and found his face mournful and spooky in the dying flickers with his ratty clothes hanging off him.

They sang, but this time soft and quiet, singing to one another and with one another at the end of their lonely little alley, at the end of their lonely little fire.

> “This night we come a souling, good nature to find,  
> And we hope you’ll remember it’s Soul Caking time.  
> Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat,  
> Please put a penny in the Old Man’s hat.  
> If you haven’t got a penny a ha’penny will do,  
> If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you.”

“What do you want for Christmas, Ed?”

Edmund did not answer, for to speak the wish would be pointless. Instead, he said, “Let’s go home. It’s past nine.”

“All right.”

On the way home through the raucous streets, they dropped lit firecrackers behind them, sure to leave one at the steps to Hanna Tanner’s door.

They ran into the house to let their mother scold them and exclaim over the state of them. Their father clapped them each on the shoulder and said something gruff and happy and by the time they got upstairs, they thought the silence a blessing.

In their room, Edmund crept from his bed into Peter’s and looked up at his older brother, who feigned sleep. “Peter? Peter? Peter.”

“Edmund. Go to sleep.”

“Do you think Father Christmas will come?”

“No. Mum and Dad will hide the presents.” He opened his blue eyes. “This isn’t Narnia.”

“No,” Edmund agreed. “It isn’t.” He was quiet and thoughtful for a long time. “Do you remember—”

“Of course I do,” Peter promised, kissing him on the lips. “I remember everything. But we’re home now. Go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“In your own bed.”

“Okay,” Edmund said, but did not move.

 Peter did not say anything else, but finally wrapped an arm around his brother, who slept.

Peter watched the light of the bonfires flickering on the ceiling and envied Edmund, for he could not find any sleep for himself.

= = = = =

The End


End file.
